The family of Major Harris, Mrs Diana Harris, sitting, with, clockwise, nephew Capt Philip ‘Will’ Harris, the Lord Lieutenant, son Peter and his partner Susan Piggott and granddaughter Georgina

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A war widow has received the Elizabeth Cross to mark the sacrifice and loss she and her family experienced when her husband died on active duty while serving his country 57 years ago.

Diana Harris, aged 92, from Warfield, was among relatives from four families who each received the award from the Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire Mary Bayliss at Arborfield Garrison last Thursday.

Diana’s husband, Major Wilfred Harris, held the Military Cross for gallantry.

He was killed when an American F84 jet fighter suffered engine failure and crash-landed on to a jeep he was driving in Korea on June 2, 1953. He was 36.

The Elizabeth Cross was inaugurated last year bearing the name of the Queen and is presented on her behalf to the families of Armed Forces personnel killed on operational duty as official recognition from the nation of their loss. The Lord Lieutenant paid tribute to the support which families gave servicemen and women.

She said she hoped the families could have a sense of pride in their lost loved ones.

Diana, of Buckle Lane, told The Standard: “My husband was very keen on the army.

“They weren’t soldiers as they are now, he didn’t go to Sandhurst or Woolwich.

“It was because of the war he joined up and he stayed on and was sent to Korea.

“It’s very emotional that he has been recognised. It’s such a long time ago that I have got over the grief now, but I think he would be very proud.”

Diana was joined at the ceremony by her son Peter, 62, his partner Susan Piggott, 41, and granddaughter Georgia Harris, aged 13.

Peter said: “I thought this was a lovely way of commemorating my father’s memory and what he had done in his military service throughout the Second World War and then in Korea.

“It was a great loss. I was only a youngster when he was killed.

“My brother was four years older and felt his loss very, very greatly and my mother has continued with that loss too, and there isn’t a day that goes by when we don’t think of him in some way or another.”

Major Harris joined the Royal Artillery in May 1939 and served in Greece and North Africa during the Second World War and later received the Military Cross for his actions during the Battle of El Alamein.

The Military Cross recognises ‘acts of exemplary gallantry during active operaton’.

Later he learnt to fly with the RAF and joined 656 Squadron, flying Auster spotter aircraft dropping supplies to foot patrols over Panang during the Korean War, earning him the nickname ‘Bomber Harris’.

The Lord Lieutenant was joined at the ceremony by Deputy Lord Lieutenant Brigadier Michael Aris, Brigadier Neil Baverstock from the Royal Artillery and Commodore Tim Hennessey from the Royal Navy.

The Lord Lieutenant said: “Time is a great healer but only up to a point.

“The loss can never be made whole.

“Families have been altered by deaths such as these.”

But she added she hoped the families could have a sense of pride that their relatives had played a part in helping to preserve the values for which the nation stood.

She paid tribute to those who had made the “ultimate sacrifice”.

She said her eyes had been opened to eyes to “the quality, dedication and professionalism of all our Armed Forces and what their families and supporters are asked to put up with in the process.

“They couldn’t do that without the support of those behind them and we’re all so proud of them.”